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Roselily | Introduction

‘‘Roselily’’ was first published as the opening story in Alice Walker’s first collection of short stories, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973). The collection won the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and was widely and favorably reviewed. ‘‘Roselily’’ has been included in several important literary anthologies, including Calling the Wind: Twentieth-Century African-American Short Stories (1993).

The story of a rural African-American woman from Mississippi who is about to escape poverty and disgrace by marrying a man she barely knows, a Muslim from the North, it received praise from critics for giving a voice to a segment of the population that has seldom been represented in fiction. The central character is an unmarried woman with three children, aged three, four, and five, and Walker depicts her with respect and compassion.

The prospects for Roselily finding happiness in her loveless marriage seem dim; she is one of the many female characters in In Love and Trouble who suffer not only from financial hardship but also from the imbalance of power between men and women. In part because of her own disillusionment with the inequalities that she faced when the Civil Rights Movement did not lead to a significant increase in equality for African-American women, Walker’s work is frequently concerned with women’s struggles and misguided loyalties. In an interview published in the prose collection In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Walker described the central characters in In Love and Trouble: ‘‘thirteen women—mad, raging, loving, resentful, hateful, strong, ugly, weak, pitiful, and magnificent—try to live with the loyalty to black men that characterizes all of their lives. For me, black women are the most fascinating creations in the world.’’

Roselily Summary

The story begins with the opening words of the traditional wedding ceremony, ‘‘Dearly Beloved.’’ The two words, italicized, hang above a paragraph of prose, with no explanation. Following the paragraph are a few more words from the ceremony, ‘‘we are gathered here.’’ The brief story is arranged this way throughout. A paragraph or two of prose is followed by a bit of the minister’s words, until two sentences from the wedding are complete: ‘‘Dearly Beloved, / we are gathered here / in the sight of God / to join this man and this woman / in holy matrimony’’ and ‘‘If there’s anybody here that knows a reason why / these two should not be joined / together, / let him speak / or forever hold / his peace.’’

The eleven prose sections are spoken in the third person by a narrator who can see into the mind of Roselily, the central character. Each section reports what Roselily thinks and observes as she is being married. There is no dialogue and no real action, but simply the meandering thoughts of the central character. The story opens with Roselily daydreaming through her own wedding, seeing herself in her mother’s wedding gown. It is obvious immediately that this is not the story of a joyous wedding day. The wedding party stands on the porch of Roselily’s house, and the man she is marrying (he is never named) does not approve of the location.

Throughout the ceremony, cars can be heard passing by on the highway. White people drive the cars, and... » Complete Roselily Summary